How a teenage girl was swarmed and beaten after months of cyber-taunting

Annie Hurwich was the victim of a girl-on-girl swarming attack in April of 2011. She is pictured here at the scene of the attack in the field behind Kwantlen Park Secondary.

Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider
, Vancouver Sun

Sixteen-year-old Annie Hurwich was sprawled in the mud at a Surrey park when the first blows hit.

A boot to her head. Another that left her nose a bloody mess. Repeated kicks in the ribs. A hard one to the back.

Many of the kicking feet were clad in Ugg boots. Her attackers were other teen girls, aged 18 and 19.

It was a violent crime that changed the lives of everyone involved. Five young women were charged with criminal offences; three pleaded guilty.

A teen boy taped the swarming with his phone and posted it online, where it stayed a short time until it was seized by police. The video compounded Hurwich’s physical wounds with social humiliation.

Hurwich was cyber-friends with her attackers but until that day, April 9, 2011, had never met most of them face-to-face.

The long prologue to this melee, and its equally lengthy epilogue, are written in often-nasty language in Facebook posts, Twitter feeds and text messages.

Such is the world of some teenagers, where trash-talking and taunts can be typical forms of communication. And where friends are made and lost with the click of a mouse.

That vicious online banter can lead to real-life violence in extreme situations.

In this case, lawyers, police and Hurwich herself agree this bloody brawl was fuelled by vitriolic words that were typed, not uttered.

Hurwich mouthed off in cyberspace and got what was coming to her, her attackers say. They also argue they are paying a higher price than the beating Hurwich received, as a result of criminal convictions, job losses and, in one case, troubles with Immigration Canada.

Hurwich says she used tough language online in a desperate bid to fit in and make friends.

She wanted to speak out about this case, she said, to warn other impressionable young women to avoid similar pitfalls.

“I think that women, especially 16-year-olds who are vulnerable and naive, should ... be sure who they are meeting up with. You have to put less pressure on yourself to be cool and included.”

In her childhood, Annie Hurwich was a smart girl but struggled to make friends, and as a result was home-schooled for many years.

At 14, she was tested by a psychologist and found to be “thoughtful and articulate” but, at the same time, poor at communicating with others and lacking in social skills.

“Annie is a child that wants to have friends and to fit in; however, she struggles with how to maintain her friendships appropriately,” says the psychologist’s report.

She would sometimes say inappropriate things if she misunderstood situations.

“She desires social relationships, but unfortunately at this time these are mostly limited to online,” said the report, which was written two years before the beating.

As an 18-year-old today, Hurwich is adapting to her disability, and is a well-spoken young woman who works at a retail store and is finishing her high school diploma online. But as a young teen, her mother Lisa Chark said, she could misread social cues.

That dynamic appears to be at play when this story began to unfold years ago.

Through a network of distant acquaintances, Hurwich hooked up on Facebook with Jamie Dunne, Samia Ahmed and others who met her the night of the attack.

The banter between the girls was at times benign, but also veered into the offensive. Hurwich said she copied the tone of the older girls’ posts, so she was speaking the same language.

“I think with social media, it is a lot easier to say things that you wouldn’t say to someone’s face,” she said. “I have more courage on social media than in person.”

In 2010, for example, when Hurwich had just turned 16, she was involved in a rude back-and-forth on Facebook with Ahmed, who is two years older and goes by the name Samantha Williams.

“I’m gonna smash ur fucken face in when i see u,” Hurwich wrote under her Facebook moniker, Chana Leigh (her Hebrew name).

“LOL, keep talking whats all you can do behind a computer screen,” Ahmed responded.

“ ... watch your mouth yuuuu stupid nigger,” Hurwich fired back.

Hurwich said she has matured today, and is mortified by the words she typed three years ago.

“Yes, she contributed (to the online exchanges). That’s why she got into this pickle in the first place,” said her mother, Chark.

“If they were acting tough and talking tough, then that was what she was going to do to fit in.”

The other women involved in this story, say they interpreted Hurwich’s hurtful words as bullying.

“Saying I’m fat and ugly when you’ve never met me — that’s bullying,” Dunne said. “And that’s what she was doing for years to me.”

And yet, Hurwich was invited to meet Dunne and her buddies at Surrey Central SkyTrain station to go to a party. She believed they wanted to be friends.

Just hours before they met up, Hurwich and Dunne texted good-naturedly about what to wear to the party and about sharing a hair-straightener if the rain ruined their hair.

A Surrey RCMP spokesman said investigators believe Hurwich made some offensive online comments to the other girls, possibly in an effort to fit in, and was “lured” to the meeting spot before she was beaten.

Dunne, who pleaded guilty to robbery in this case, denied there was a plan to fight or that she tricked Hurwich into coming.

Hurwich remembers feeling awkward as she met the other girls at a pizza restaurant near the SkyTrain that evening.

“As someone who generally doesn’t like social situations, I was pushing myself. I felt it was a true test of my ability to socialize,” she recalled.

It was raining as the group walked past a high school and into Kwantlen Park, near 104 Avenue and 132 Street, in the direction of the house party.

“I felt a kick or a push in the back and I went down. I was lying face up, I was lying with my back in the mud. I saw (one girl) leaning over me with a fist ... I’ll never get that image out of my head,” Hurwich said through tears.

“They just all started jumping in at that point. There were two or three times I was able to get up, and I thought they were giving me lenience and would allow me to leave, but as soon as I took a few steps it was game on again.

“I was so confused and so stunned by it. There was nothing I could say until something came over me during the attack, when I kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’”

Her new hoodie was stolen and later modelled as a trophy on Facebook by Dunne. Her purse, phone and debit card were taken. Her Ugg boots too, leaving her to flee through the muddy park in her bare feet.

The last thing she can recall is someone yelled, “Fatty can’t even run.”

When she got to a Mac’s convenience store, covered in blood, an employee wouldn’t let her inside but phoned her mother and the RCMP.

Hurwich was initially reluctant to cooperate with police, but the discovery of the video helped investigators go forward with charges.

“The victim was assaulted and robbed by those she casually knew and there was communication between the victim and suspect(s) on social media before and after the assault,” Surrey RCMP Cpl. Bert Paquet said in an email to The Sun.

“The victim did sustain facial injuries consistent with punching and kicking, and was kicked in the ribs.”

Five young women were charged with robbery and assault causing bodily harm.

Dunne, 21, pleaded guilty in February 2012 to the more serious charge of robbery and received two years probation.

Kyla Ashie, 20, pleaded guilty in February to assault causing bodily harm and Keshia Nepinak, 20, pleaded guilty Thursday to robbery. They will be sentenced in May, when the Crown is expected to play the video of the fight in the courtroom.

Charges against the other two young women, including Ahmed, were stayed.

The video shows Dunne, Nepinak and Ashie beating Hurwich.

Ashie denies taking part in the robbery, but is captured in the video, said her lawyer, Nicholas Preovolos. “It (the video) shows a number of young women engaged in what appears to be an assault,” he added.

He said his client has received threats on social media ever since the attack, but has no proof Hurwich is behind the taunts. However, Preovolos said the Crown has been pressured by the victim’s relatives for justice in the case and he is concerned about “parallel efforts” to reach that goal.

“My client has tried to put her life in order and make things right, and she doesn’t wish the victim any ill will,” he said.

Ashie lives with her mother and, until recently, worked at a retail store in Vancouver until someone phoned the business to indicate Ashie was facing charges, Preovolos said.

He acknowledged communication over social media played a role in this case, and said young people often don’t realize the impact these altercations can have on their lives.

“I think social media offers a level of anonymity ... a degree of removal that in-person confrontations don’t afford,” said Preovolos, whose client was in Grade 12 when the assault happened.

Another of the attackers, Dunne, moved to Canada from Ireland when she was seven years old with her mother and two younger sisters, to escape an abusive father.

In an interview, she insisted the plan that night was to attend a party, but that Hurwich and another girl had some unfinished business, which led to a “mutual” fight.

Dunne said she tried to break up the struggle between Hurwich and one of the other young women when she got slugged.

“I was so fired up. I was trying to egg (Hurwich) on to hit me again because I was so annoyed that I had been hit,” Dunne said. “I was saying, ‘Hit me again, hit me again.’ And she wouldn’t at that point, and then I just lost it. I hit her.”

Dunne, who also has a conviction for assaulting another young woman in Vancouver two months after this beating, said Hurwich had time to leave before the other two attacked her.

“(One attacker) jumped in at this point, started punching her, got on the ground, kicked her in the face a couple of times, and then (a second attacker) ran and kicked her just to get in on the action,” Dunne said.

It was wrong, Dunne allowed, that she, Ashie and Nepinak took part in the fight. However she insisted Hurwich is not an innocent victim.

“I don’t believe anyone should be physically hurt to the point that she was. I wish I could apologize to her in some way for that,” Dunne said. But it’s now to the point where she’s turned around and done so much to get back at us for it, it’s hard to feel bad for her.”

Many of the attackers insist Hurwich has continued to mix it up with them online since the beating. But they have not been able to provide any proof of this to The Sun.

Hurwich denies she harassed her attackers online after the fight. “It never crossed my mind to rattle the cage more,” she said.

Some of her attackers, though, have bragged about the swarming in online posts.

This Facebook rant by Dunne came three weeks after the beating: “she gets the living shit kicked out of her, embarassed, taxed and taped and she’s still running her mouth, although I msged her about talking shit to maxine and she never replied so she knows not to f**k with us again aha.”

To this day, there is still friction among the people embroiled in this tale.

“Even if (Hurwich) was a victim that night, she is not anymore because she is very bullying on Facebook,” said Ahmed, who was convicted last month of participating in the June 2011 Stanley Cup Riot and given a five-month conditional sentence.

Dunne cannot recall Hurwich contacting her directly on social media since the attack, but claims there have been numerous messages to her ex-boyfriend and her friends. As a result, Dunne sent messages via Facebook, Twitter and text to tell Hurwich to leave her alone.

In one of them, five months after the attack, she posted on Facebook: “annie chark — you’re honestly, the dumbest, most pathetic excuse for a person this world had ever seen. & just so you know, i feel no remorse for what i did. you’re a joke. shut the f**k up already.”

Dunne, who is in hairdressing school and is the mother of a two-year-old daughter, argues she has paid her debt to society.

She lost her job at a cellphone store after Hurwich’s mother contacted the company, and has been ordered deported from Canada because of the robbery conviction. She is appealing the order.

Hurwich, on the other hand, believes the legal system was too lenient and would like an apology from her attackers. “After two years, there is no admission, no repentance.”

Chark said she never knew about the conversations her daughter had online before the swarming, noting it is hard for parents to enter or navigate a teen’s cyberworld.

However, Chark has become adept now at tracking her daughter’s attackers online, and has messaged some through social media in an attempt to get answers and protect her only daughter.

* Texting encourages rapid-fire thoughts, but this style of communication isn’t conducive to face-to-face conversations. Consequently, people who text a lot may be more uncomfortable with in-person communication.

* When people communicate primarily via text, they’re much less likely to have meaningful conversations.

* What is posted online stays there forever. Teens should not post anything they wouldn’t want a parent or teacher or future boss to read.

* Online bullying happens in many ways: by posting mean messages in an online forum or sharing photos/videos without permission.

* Because people are not always who they pretend to be, teens should keep online friends in the virtual world. It can be dangerous to meet online friends face-to-face.

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.